24 teachers around us

There are atleast 24 teachers around us who teach different things that are worth remembering throughout life. 

Heres a beautiful story from Hinduism : I am sure each of us can find some of these useful, if not all.

Once King Yadu saw Lord Dattatreya  wandering in a forest happily, free from worries. The king with humbleness asked the sage, about the secret of his happiness and the name of his Guru. Further said to sage, that despite you look capable and wise, why do you live in the forest. Even though you have no family, nor any loved one, how could you be so blissful and self-contented? 

 Lord Dattatreya  replied:

"My bliss and contentment are the fruits of self-realization. Soul (Aatmaa) alone is my Guru, yet I have gained the necessary wisdom from the whole creation, via 24 individual who were therefore my Gurus. I shall elaborate the same for you". 


1. Earth (Prithvi) (Along with Mountain & Trees)

The Earth teaches course of Dharma, art of Tolerance, art of Performing Duty. One can learn Patience and Forgiveness from Earth. Like mountains and trees, one should devotedly dedicate self to the welfare of other living beings.

2. Air (Vaayu)

The Air being pure and odorless in its characteristics, move freely among all objects and yet remain unaffected. The Air teaches the value of being free from all contamination, and of staying clear of material world’s disturbances.

When Air blows out of control, the atmosphere becomes agitated, similarly if the mind is constantly attracted and repelled by material objects, it will be next to impossible to think of the Absolute Truth, Supreme Personality of Godhead, Shri Krishna.


3. Sky (Aakash)
The Sky having no boundaries, beyond the reach of material nature. Infinite in nature, sometime clouds cover the sky but yet sky remains unaffected. In the same way, the soul is never affected, by the material body contamination. Like sky, the Soul is omnipresent, all-pervading, and infinite in nature. The inner emptiness of sky i.e. space, teaches the sage should be free of emotions within insight.

4. Water (Jal)
The sage is like water because he is free from all impurities, gentle in nature and while speaking he creates a beautiful vibration like the flowing of water. By seeing, touching or hearing such a saintly person, the living entity is cleansed as if coming in contact with pure water.
Water quenches the thirst of every creature, very important element for all creatures. Without feeling any proud, water serves all living beings. The sage too should likewise bestow health, peace and joy to every creature that resorts to him. The Sage should ever live as the humblest of God’s creation. Water teaches the quality of purity. Just as the pure water cleanses others, so also the sage, who is pure and free from selfishness, lust, egoism, anger, greed, etc., purifies all who come in contact with him.

5. Fire (Agni)

Fire burns bright, cannot be suppressed by others. It has no extra storage place, it keeps all inside itself and it can eat anything and yet not get dirty when comes in to contact of other dirty things. The sage's glory is like the fire, is made brighter by austerities, his knowledge and tapas; having no vessel other than his stomach.
Although having no shape of its own, the fire assumes the shape of the firewood through which it reveals itself. Similarly, having entered a particular body, the soul reveals the traits through that body.

6. Moon (Chandarmaa)

The moon waxes and wanes, despite this continuous change taking place with the moon, yet it remains unaffected by this process. Similarly the sage should not be affected by the continual change of body from birth to death including diseases and old age.

7. Sun (Surya)

The reflection of sun can be seen in many objects, but the actual sun is One and undivided. That teaches the Supreme Soul is one, and reflected into various bodies; but the soul is not body itself.
The sun evaporates water, and it returns water back to earth in the form of rain without any attachment or entangled with its act. Similarly the sage can accept material things with his senses, but at the appropriate time he should give these things back, as an act from sense of duty. Without getting attached to material sense objects.

8. Pigeon (A Bird)

Once a devoted pigeon couple along with their babies lives happily in jungle. The couple loves each other too much, also take care of their infant babies. The love among them is ever growing every day. One day the couple went to bring food for their children. In the meanwhile, the bird-hunter came to their nest and caught the children in a net. When the couple returned back, they saw their dear children were caught in net. Unable to live without their children, the couple foolishly also jumped into that trap of net. The bird-catcher returned home with the complete catch.
Teaches:
The pigeon story warns against developing obsessive love or attachments in the transient material world. The sage would refrain from attachment after attaining the human body, which is the open door to Mukti (Moksha, Liberation), a door to God-Realization. Even after being born as an intelligent living being, one is caught in the clutches of possessiveness and brings about his own spiritual destruction. Excessive attachment and love with anything except wisdom, is the cause of bondage.

9. Python (Ajgar)
A python eats whatever comes in its way and satisfy, whether it is sufficient or not, bitter or sweet etc.
One should accept whatever one comes across in the life with full contentment. While suffering the hardships and miseries in life, one should think, it is due to past sinful activities that one is being punished. A sage always goes for search of wisdom and refrains from running after unwanted pleasures.

10. HoneyBee (Madhu Makhi)

Honeybee wanders from flower to flower to collect nectar from them, without hurting the flower and draws honey.
Similarly the sage takes the essence of different various Holy Scriptures, study and practices them spiritually. The sage should wander from door to door to beg just enough food for his living without troubling the householders who provide them. The sage should not become greedy.


11. Honey-Theif (Honey-Gatherer)

The bees collect honey and store it with hard work, which they neither eat nor give away it, themselves in charity to any other creature(s). The Honey-Gatherer (honey-theif), comes and takes the honey easily. 
The sage should not store things for himself even for the next time. He should use his palms to take food and stomach to store food. We have to leave all we store out of trouble throughout our life, at once and depart when the Lord of Death Yama come and take us with him.

12. Bird of Prey (Kurari Bird, Hawk)

One there was Kurari bird who pick some sort of food in the beak from somewhere. At that time, the other stronger birds having no food to eat attacked that bird to take food away from his beak. In order to get rid of the attack and to attain peace, the bird dropped the food from beak.
Teaches:
The worldly possessions are source of trouble. If one run after sensual pleasures, will soon come into clash with his fellow-beings, who too run for the same, and has to face much miseries and strife. Happiness and Enlightenment belong to one who lives simply, conquer his craving for worldly things and seeks only spiritual goals. One becomes as happy and relieved only on abandoning the sensual pleasures.

13. Sea (Ocean, Samudra)
The ocean neither increases due to excessive inflow of rivers nor decreases due to stoppage of flow of rivers, yet it maintains its level. The calm sea never disturbed, always remains in its boundaries (except the Natural Catastrophe). 
The sage should be equipoised and in state of calmness. The life of sage remains balanced; the joys of life do not excite him, nor do sorrows depress him. The wise sage never transgresses the highest standards of morality. The depth of such sage’s wisdom cannot be easily comprehended by anyone, just as hidden pearls at the depth of ocean cannot easily be discovered.

14. Moth (Grasshoper, Patanga)

The moth is tempted by fire, being attracted by the delightful beauty of flame, it jumps into it and get burns within it.
Similarly a foolish man is enticed by the illusory pleasures of the visual senses and thus gets caught in the ceaseless cycles of birth and death.
Teaches: 
To control the sense of sight (and all other senses) and to try to avoid being greedy.

15. Elephant (Haathi)

The male elephant out of immense lust falls into a pit covered over with grass by the scent of its mate, a paper and wooden made female elephant. The elephant gets caught and enchained after being attracted towards its opposite gender mate.
Similarly, a passionate person is tempted by the opposite gender and falls into the trap and come to grief. The seekers of Spiritual Truth should learn, to get rid from the clutches of lust.

16. Deer (Hiran)

The deer is very fond of music and is very much attracted by it. The deer is trapped by hunter through its love for music. Hunter employs music to lure the deer before hunting it. 
Teaches:
Passion and Sensual Desires will later or sooner bring down a sage from his spiritual progress. A renounced person should never become attracted by mundane sounds like sensuous music, specially the sweet singing and dancing of girl.

17. Fish (Machali)

Due to uncontrolled tongue, the fish is caught on hook. It is through tasteful bait (small food use to catch fish), that the fish meets its end.
Teaches:
Among the sense, tongue is the most difficult to be controlled. When tongue is controlled, other sense will become easy to be controlled. Apart from that, fish never leaves its home (i.e. water), so one should never lose sight of his True Self.

18. Pingala (A Dancing Girl)

There was a dancing girl named Pingala, she was tired of looking for customers one night to come and give her sensual pleasure along with lot of money. She became hopeless and ultimately out of frustration gave her plans for earning money via this means. Feeling satisfaction from her abandonment of material desires, she was contented with what she had, and then had sound sleep. She has realized that divine spirit lies within herself, who is of the nature of bliss eternal.  
Teaches:
The abandonment of expectation from people, leads to contentment and infinite joy.

19. Child
A child has no grievance, anger, jealousy, hatred and above all Free of Ego and Arrogance. Both child and sage are free from anxieties, and fully engrossed in the supreme joy. A child is happy and enjoying due to ignorance, while sage is happy free from all worldly desires, which is transcended the three gunas (satva, rajas and tamas).
Teaches:
Live like being child at heart, innocent, care free and full of Supreme Joy.

20. Maiden (Un-Married Girl)

Once some people came home to see a Maiden Girl. Her parents were not at home, so she had to entertain them herself. She went to kitchen and started beating rice for their food. At that time her hand bangles started making noise. She did not like that noise [because it showed that they were so poor that she herself had to beat the rice]. So she broke all the bangles except two in each hand. But still they made noise. So she broke one more bangle from each hand. Hence no noise produced. 

Teaches:
When there are number of spiritual seekers living together, there will be clash of interests. Even among two persons, there might be disturbance, dispute etc. The sage should live alone in solitude, as it is better to live alone, without creating any unwanted noise, gossips.

21. Serpent (Snake, Saaamp)

The snake lives alone and avoids the company of other creatures. In order to seek Self-Realization, one should abide in the cave of his own heart.
The snake leaves of its old skin after sometime, and gets the newer one; that make resemblance with phenomenon of death. A true sage never frightened by the death, knowing sooner or later he will get a new life based on his karmic actions.

22. Arrow-Smith (Maker of Arrow)

Once there was an arrow maker, he was so absorbed in making the tip of an arrow; that he didn’t notice the procession of King passes nearby him. He was very much keen in his work. 
Teaches:
Focused Mind, Concentration is the way to achieve Self-Realization. 

23. Spider (Makari)

Spider builds a beautiful web from his heart through the mouth; play and enjoys with it and then after some time swallow that very same web. 
Teaches:
Lord Supreme creates material universe from His Maya, preserves it and after a while draws it back into the Self. The Supreme Self has no desires and is beyond the reach of cause and effect. 

24. Caterpillar (Wasp, Bhringee)

The wasp catches hold of a worm (caterpillar), put it in its hive (nest), gives it a sting and goes on buzzing about it. The caterpillar is so frightened by this whole ongoing process of buzzing, that it cannot think anything else apart from wasp. The constantly kept thinking of caterpillar of about wasp, eventually make a caterpillar, a wasp itself. 
Teaches:
Whatever form a man constantly thinks of (knowingly, unintentionally, be it with love, jealousy or fear etc.), he attains in course of time that form. As a man thinks, so he becomes. Even at the time of death, whatever one's mind focused on, one attains the same living species form in his next life. 
Thus one must try to give up all attachment to the body and attain Moksha or liberation.
If one constantly, devotedly without any sort of deviation mediates upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one will achieve a spiritual body just like that of the Lord, qualitatively.

Get to the Root

Every river when it starts is usually a small stream. As it flows further, it gets wider. It also gets all the contamination down the line. Over a longer distance , the river loses its originality and becomes something else.

Same for faiths, processes and practices.

They all start with the right intent, ideal and rationale. As they become more popular /widespread/aged, the original intent is lost, impurities get added, goals get perverted and they take shape much different from the original.

When you see a distorted faith, a skewed process or a questionable practice that has become established, it might be worthwhile to go the origin to understand the original thought.

A river cannot go back to its roots but you can.

1 out of 8400000

It is believed that there are 8400000 kinds of life forms on this planet. Human being is just one of them. 

It is the only life form that can 'speak'. 

It is perhaps the only life form that can 'consciously' do something in its efforts for a better life - in this one and the next!!!

For those who believe in re-birth, the re-birth can be any one of the 8400000 life forms. So you know the statistical probability of the next one being the same as the current one - human being.

Even this life form has no clue how long will it last, despite all the scientific advances.

Make this one count!

Count your blessings!

Make this life useful to others. 

Do things that can possibly get you a better next life!

If you are wasting this, how sure are you that you will get a similar one again?

The Hype Blender

Articles, news items, web pages, power points  nowadays are flooded with keywords considered hottest/coolest/most hip. I call that the Hype Blender. If you have a blender, add the latest buzzwords , run the blender for a few minutes..... you will get a concoction.

The concoction must be important and relevant since it contains the latest buzzwords, right???

Are you sure??

From a customer perspective, they see these concoctions in hundreds /thousands every day/week. If they end up believing/investing in everyone of them, they would be bankrupt in no time.

From a reader/viewer perspective as well, if they start believing every concoction with the latest buzzwords, they will go mad in no time!

The long term successes in my view are those 

-that do not necessarily come from a blender

- that are original

- have deep thought behind them that pass critical scrutiny.

(Updated) Pearls of Wisdom from my father's life!

( This is the updated post , thanks to what I learned from his friends/colleagues during his one year death anniversary)

As some of you might know, my father Divakarla Venkateswarlu passed away on 2nd August 2016 and he was 77. While his family and friends ( friends in 100s! ) mourn the deep loss and miss him, I wanted to compile the golden nuggets that he shared with us during his life.

The following is not an eulogy but only enumeration of  tenets he lived by.

1. 'less luggage , more comfort' - one of his favorite quotes. He applied this to many things - travel baggage, money, life!  The simpler the life is , the more comfortable it is.

2. I remember literally hundreds of nights when poor patients used to knock our door in the middle of the night . He would never get upset to get up and then treat them/provide medicines/injections ( free of cost ALWAYS!) while my mom used to be irritated by the midnight disturbances.

3. There's more to life than work!  He practiced this by learning medicine as hobby ( Allopathy/Homeopathy) and treated poor patients free of cost, used weekends to go to medical camps in villages with real doctors and met doctors in the weekends to learn/get guidance. If  30% of his life was work, 70% was spent in treating people, participate and contribute to more than 10 literary organisations !!

4. When we were kids, my brother and I used to go to his office once in a while. When we used to ask for nice paper there, he steadfastly refused us to take anything from his office. His place of work was sanctimonious for him and no question of 'Stealing' anything from there!

5. His insistence on healthy living. Forcing us to play everyday in the evening until we sweat ( thats the simple rule! ). No excess eating of anything. In the last few months of his life, he regretted being unable to see my tennis games!

6. Get happy with smallest pleasures of life!  He used to be thrilled if anyone gets him a good pen to write ( it need not be costly just write well). Given the simplicity of his life, he used to enjoy life's smallest gifts!  ( may be his secret to rock solid health until he was 72! )

7. He was completely against the Rat Race/pressure cooker lifestyles for his families. His favourite quote was ' Health is wealth. NOT VICE VERSA! '

8. Money was never important to him, never!  Everything that he enjoyed in life never came from money - service, literary pursuits!

9. Number of lives he touched! - When he got sick at 72, couple of hundred people came to the house to check his welfare!!!

10. He was human and was short tempered. But he never held anything. He said what he felt and there was no bottling up tensions inside/no talking behind someone's back/ no grudges. Any hot issue would be over in few minutes and then he would be back to normal with everyone. ( may be his secret to normal blood pressure! ).

11. He had a permanent smile on his face all the time. It used to bring people into pleasantness immediately and they felt connected immediately

12. Within his limited means, he was always exploring helping others. Be it medical advice/life style/connecting people with those who can help them... This is what has endeared him to a cross section of society,  not possible to a normal human.

13.  One of his qualities many remember even today, is he would always be the first to address someone without prompting. He would stop, call the person, check welfare and he would do this without fail to almost everyone who would cross his path. Some of them have said that he is perhaps the only one who would talk to them in the community area.

14. Long time ago, when my mother got ill briefly, he found the motivation to learn medicine as a hobby. Over time he learnt multiple disciplines of the same ( Allopathy, Homeopathy, Yoga etc) and used them to help people. He used to motivate aged doctors to go for medical camps to villages so that he can accompany them.

15. He had motivated colleagues to 'UPSKILL' ( the buzz word today) through certifications and learnings so that they can get hikes/promotions and stay relevant. He had created training materials, conducted training courses , above and beyond all his other facets of life.

16. At the age of 75, he wanted to drive a car. Many of us suggested against it given his faculties. He went ahead and bought a used car, learnt driving with the help of a driver,took the driving test, failed once, took the test again to clear it, got his license!!!


" You measure your life by those who measure theirs with yours"


Once again, the above is not an eulogy but simply a listing of the tenets he lived by which touched and helped many lives including ours.

May his soul find peace and be one with Him.

Thank you for reading this. Hope any of this above becomes useful in your lives.
Nand Kishore

Divide and conquer!

Why do people in high stress occupations consider  'compartmentalization' a great skill?

Simply because more information means more complexities and more complexities mean nothing gets done!

Divide the problem into smaller chunks and win one chunk at a time! Too big a chunk and you get overwhelmed or get lost , too small a chunk - well at least you make a start!

Compartmentalize !!! you will start winning...

Get rich by spending

Travel and books are the only two things that make you richer by spending!!! 

Why? 

They take you to a world that's outside yours,  bring surprises,  help you peer into interesting people/ things and broaden your view. 

All the social media and internet mostly has unreal content - be it self promotion, unverified facts or plain time wasters! 

These two also stir your creative faculties in ways many others can't. 

Someone once said ' everything that's worth writing has already been written'. 

So get away from that bright screen and get lost in a new place or a new book!!! 

Blenders in Action !!!

How much of what you see/hear/talk is an original thought and how much of it is output of a blender?

Let me explain.

With so many hype cycles , buzzwords going around, people are putting in those keywords in a blender , churning them for a while and creating an output and throwing it at anyone who is receiving.

The output has no correlation/relevance/meaning to the real world. It just is a blend of latest keywords, aimed at overwhelming/confusing you so you feel defensive.

Stay away from Blenders and Blender owners!

Brushing teeth- Best practices

Is brushing teeth daily , a strategy or best practice or an intervention ? Its basic hygiene.

Cost management in businesses is similar. You don't look at costs just when revenues are flattening/ growth is slowing or when pricing power is reduced in the market place.

Managing to be a lean/mean cost operation is to be in everyone's DNA irrespective of topline issues.

In the same way, it should not be ignored when you have scorching growth rates and bumper profits.

Keeping costs as variable ( to the revenues) as possible, hawkish watching of cost spikes /exceptions, revenue leakages, pricing controls, Year on Year cost base reductions --- all part of the hygiene!

While doing this , keep in mind that cost control does not increase revenues.

Hype vs Value

We were promised flying cars and instead got social networks!!! - Peter Theil, venture capitalist 

Over the last four decades, labor productivity growth has been painfully slow - one of the reasons for stagnant wage growth in rich world.

How much of the innovation is touching bulk of the population? Mobile is enabling  millions get ' connected' and hence get benefited economically. At the same time, social networks are killing creativity, productivity at an equally alarming rate.

The winners of digital race are so few that many startups end up being ' hype pushers' rather than 'world changers'. 100s of them follow the same idea that makes you wonder if it's innovation at all!!

As each of us participate, work, invest in in these, it's critical to separate true value from hype.

Sparks at the fringes

Driving innovation is not easy. Most times it happens at fringes, pockets, derided by the majority and systems are designed to frustrate.

Pivoting is a key skill in demand for innovators. Entrepreneurs are known to be passionately and doggedly married to their ideas even though the market place has rejected them.

The open mind that got them the bright idea in the first place, eludes them when they see poor response. Pick your battles, find the sweet spots, look for early adopters, sharpen or customise the idea and if nothing works, ..... Pivot.

Life is short and mortality rates of ideas is high. 

Pivot....

Jerks and saints

Bulk of the world economies are now dominated by services. Manufacturing is perennially moving to cheaper countries and agriculture is getting automated.

Services are people intensive. You better be good with people first if you want to do well in services. The deliverables are intangible, methods of selecting and evaluating a services partner are fuzzy at best.

Its not enough to be an expert. Don't be a jerk. Most people choose their services partner based on their comfort and then justify that with rationality.

Relationships, working in cross cultural, virtual teams, handling conflicts, team wins are more critical than individual brilliance. 

Many a time, it is a popularity contest rather than a talent show!!!

Simple is beautiful

In the world of business agility, where speed overrides everything else given the short career spans of executives, shorter gaps between epic shocks etc, what's increasingly becoming critical is ' simplicity'.

Simpler solutions are easy to understand, implement, course correct, cheaper, less likely to fail( less complexity), less likely to be misunderstood....

Keep the solutions, projects, ideas simple. 

Anything else and you have already lost the plot, in the world of business agility.